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Chockstone Forum - General Discussion

General Climbing Discussion

 Page 1 of 3. Messages 1 to 20 | 21 to 40 | 41 to 59
Author
year long climbing trip around oz
hairy1
26-Aug-2011
1:01:29 PM
hey everyone

me and alice are planning to spend all next year cruising around with a camper trailer climbing. i Might do a bit of work here and there when we need coin. Haven't really got a good plan yet, but thinking

Jan - ?Blue mountains shady climbing
Feb - Grampians/Arapiles, remember how to climb after living in darwin for 2.5 years
Mar - Buffalo - get scared
April - Head to Moonarie later in april
May - whip up to Alice springs for the Red Centre MTB Enduro and climb a bit
June - Frog
July/Aug - rent a house in the blue mountains that has heating perhaps do some paid work when it's raining
Sept -?WA
Oct ?
Nov ? Weribee gorge & Staughton Vale
Dec/Jan - Tassie (a bit early perhaps but alice will have to start work in mid/late jan)

?could head to nz for a month also

want to go to warrumbungles, bungonia & point perp - best time? sounds like bungonia would be a good place to go when we're firing....i guess we'll go to nowra as well...

other suggestions?

Sabu
26-Aug-2011
1:04:22 PM
Werribee and Staughton vale for November? you could knock off both of those off in 2 days while you're passing through (if you even want to bother at all, they're not on par with everything else Australia has to offer). Time is much better spent elsewhere.
bones
26-Aug-2011
1:05:30 PM
Don't miss point perp. We were there in January and it was fine, there are always shady routes and a cool(ish) breeze off the ocean.
bones
26-Aug-2011
1:06:51 PM
Dont cut Tassie too short either... so many awesome crags

wallwombat
26-Aug-2011
1:08:26 PM
Booroomba.

Nowra is a good winter destination.


Nangar is gold. Don't miss it.
hairy1
26-Aug-2011
1:14:08 PM
so perhaps nov/dec for Tas? or would it be too cold and rainy - I used to go paddling there in Nov....

rodw
26-Aug-2011
1:17:52 PM
On 26/08/2011 bones wrote:
>Don't miss point perp. We were there in January and it was fine, there
>are always shady routes and a cool(ish) breeze off the ocean.

Port Stephens crags, though hot is right by the ocean and good for several days.

wallwombat
26-Aug-2011
1:28:46 PM
On 26/08/2011 hairy1 wrote:
>so perhaps nov/dec for Tas? or would it be too cold and rainy - I used
>to go paddling there in Nov....

No, that's spring/summer there too.
bl@ke
26-Aug-2011
1:41:16 PM
Stay in Tassie for a year and do 6 billion awsome FA's
Wendy
26-Aug-2011
2:09:56 PM
My first thought was what an impractical order for getting around. So i took a moment to draw your travel plans:



But I figured a long time ago that you need at least 2 years to give the entirety of Australia any half way decent showing - one of the reasons being the number of places that are awesome at the same time of year.

Why spend 3 months in the blue mts? I'd go straight to Tassie and Buffalo for Jan/Feb, then Arapiles and the Gramps (you will find 1 month totally inadequate), then Moonarie (awesome as Moonarie is, I'd probably go 6 weeks in Araps Gramps and take 2 out of Moonarie. Actually, take 2 out of Alice as well - there's some ok climbing, but if climbing is your priority, you'll get better value out of Araps/Gramps/Moonarie. You can push Frog back to July, it'll be perfect. I'd hang out in Qld a bit longer, because the Blueys are seriously bloody cold and miserable. The bungles were pretty damn cold 2 weeks ago, but if you get a good spell of weather, they are in a great spot to break up the drive from Frog to the Blueys. This should get you to the Blueys are a much more sensible time, like September, although it could still be bloody wet. In which case, you could go to Nowra. Which otherwise, I wouldn't have said was worth that much of your time unless you really are into sport climbing. Don't bother trying to fit Bungonia in unless you are cruising at least 22. What's this thing with Weribee and Staughton? I'd ignore them and just head towards WA, stopping at Araps, Gramps and Moonarie again on the way, because you'll probably wish you had more time at all of them unless you've actually been there quite a lot before.

now your map look a little less chaotic:



Don't know where you are going to fit the work bit in that though. I got too excited about getting the climbing bits in ... It should be awesome, have fun.
Mike Bee
26-Aug-2011
3:00:55 PM
I was pretty much going to post what Wendy said.

Gramps and Araps need a lot of time and exploring. Way more than a single month. They're probably the locations I'd spend the most time in out of the whole country.
Tassie is the place to spend most of summer. Lots of climbing, and you'll be away from the heat of the mainland (except Buffalo get there too during the summer).
Frog and Nowra during the winter would be the best choices, and then aim to fill the shoulder seasons (spring and autumn) with Gramps, Araps, Moonarie, Bluies.
One Day Hero
26-Aug-2011
3:10:11 PM
No, don't go to Buffalo in summer, its stinking hot and flys most of the time.

Pretty much everywhere is good from sometime in March till sometime in May.......I'd chill out at the beach a bit over summer to make sure you're not burnt out when the good climbing weather rolls around.

Are you still gonna be psyched to climb after 3 months of nothing else? I've certainly mever managed to stay keen for that long in a row.
Wendy
26-Aug-2011
3:24:50 PM
On 26/08/2011 One Day Hero wrote:
>No, don't go to Buffalo in summer, its stinking hot and flys most of the
>time.

It amazes me how soft you can be sometimes ... Summer is the only time to go to Buffalo. On the odd day when it's too hot, there's a lake to swim in.

I've never seen Buffalo flying. It would be a crap experience if the whole crag suddenly took off on you. The flies there on the other hand, have never seemed to be an issue whilst actually climbing, and if they get really bad at camp, put up a mozzie net. We didn't need to cook in ours at all this January.
>
>Pretty much everywhere is good from sometime in March till sometime in
>May.......I'd chill out at the beach a bit over summer to make sure you're
>not burnt out when the good climbing weather rolls around.

i'd chill out in qld somewhere over the winter if I needed time off climbing ... Skipping summer would mean (a) they just had a break at the start or end of the trip, which is a little pointless and (b) missing the only time you have half a chance of getting any climbing done in Buffalo and Tassie (or NZ, if for some reason they thought they didn't have enough to fill a whole year in Oz with). Given they have been in Darwin for 2.5 years, I don't think lack of heat tolerance is going to be an issue. They may however, have a similar cold intolerance to me.
One Day Hero
26-Aug-2011
3:38:40 PM
On 26/08/2011 Wendy wrote:
> ... Summer is the only time
>to go to Buffalo. On the odd day when it's too hot, there's a lake to
>swim in.

Of the 2 weeks or so I've spent at Buffalo in summer (spread over 4 summers) 10 days were over 30 degrees, and the other 4 it was snowing.................on average it was perfect!
>
>I've never seen Buffalo flying. It would be a crap experience if the
>whole crag suddenly took off on you.

This is the confusion which is bound to result when some moron names an animal with a verb!

>have never seemed to be an issue whilst actually climbing

I've had days where every second move on every route was a face slap

>... Skipping summer would mean (a) they just had a break at the start or
>end of the trip, which is a little pointless

No, pointless is; sweating it out all summer, slapping flies and spoodging off routes.....only for the good weather to come around and your motivation has been sapped by all the spoodging and slapping.

and (b) missing the only time
>you have half a chance of getting any climbing done in Buffalo and Tassie
>(or NZ, if for some reason they thought they didn't have enough to fill
>a whole year in Oz with).

Missing Buffalo is no great tragedy (missing NZ isn't either). Tassie is the only place in australasia thats really worth climbing through summer
Wendy
26-Aug-2011
4:27:44 PM
On 26/08/2011 One Day Hero wrote:

>
>Of the 2 weeks or so I've spent at Buffalo in summer (spread over 4 summers)
>10 days were over 30 degrees, and the other 4 it was snowing.................on
>average it was perfect!

What's wrong with over 30? You are such a cold frog! Of the 14 or so weeks I've spent at Buffalo in summer (spread over 14 or so years), 1 day was too hot to climb (that day came to be known as black saturday), it snowed on me once, was uncomfortably cold (you'd have loved it) a few days, hot enough to avoid the sun moderately often, but that's not a big deal. My success rate in Tassie is far worse - of 3 visits, 3 different summers, I was snowed on at least once each trip!
>>

>>have never seemed to be an issue whilst actually climbing
>
>I've had days where every second move on every route was a face slap

Just because your performance was such that you felt the need to self flagellate, doesn't mean the rest of us are so harsh on ourselves. Walking in the Kimberly was way worse for flies. Maybe Canberra is too cold to need to develop fly tolerance.
>
>>... Skipping summer would mean (a) they just had a break at the start
>or
>>end of the trip, which is a little pointless
>
>No, pointless is; sweating it out all summer, slapping flies and spoodging
>off routes.....only for the good weather to come around and your motivation
>has been sapped by all the spoodging and slapping.
>

>and (b) missing the only time
>>you have half a chance of getting any climbing done in Buffalo and Tassie
>>(or NZ, if for some reason they thought they didn't have enough to fill
>>a whole year in Oz with).
>
>Missing Buffalo is no great tragedy (missing NZ isn't either).

If only people would stop bagging out Buffalo like this, it might get enough traffic for the classic routes to stay clean ... Buffalo is awesome. It's beautiful, it's heaps cooler than anywhere else to climb victoria, and you can get distracted from lazing by the lake by some awesome crack crack climbing in the late teens to early 20s. If you happen to be into that boring slabby stuff and riveting to watch aid climbing, apparently there's even more to do. I try not to pay any attention to that sort of weirdness and still have a great time.

>Tassie
>is the only place in australasia thats really worth climbing through summer

On the time ratio, i'd probably go 2-3 weeks buffalo, 5-6 weeks Tassie though. It's probably the fault of the kinda painful to climb with ex boyfriend I first went to Tassie with that I struggle to see why people get so excited about it. That, and getting snowed on. I never even got off the ground on the pipes. Could have xcountry skiied across ben lomond. People rave about freycinet too me, but not a single route sticks in my memory ... I find this mildly disturbing.
Duncan
26-Aug-2011
4:45:52 PM
On 26/08/2011 Wendy wrote:
>long informative post

Why can we dislike people but not give them a thumbs up?

ajfclark
26-Aug-2011
4:50:32 PM
So we don't get stupid shit like on facebook:

[So and so] my good friend died

8 people like this
GusR
26-Aug-2011
5:08:17 PM
On 26/08/2011 hairy1 wrote:
>other suggestions?

Jan - Nov: WA
Dec: You Yangs

skegly
26-Aug-2011
6:42:49 PM
Don't forget Mt Alexander and the areas such as Mt Bec, camels hump and others. Yes there not mega crags or Bufflao or Grampians or Araps but there is some great stuff.
hairy1
26-Aug-2011
6:59:03 PM
totally agree about the comments re: arapiles/grampians - we lived in vic before we came to darwin and climbed extensively in the grampians, done lots at arapiles, spent a month at buffalo at one point....

probably spend some more time at grampians/arapiles towards the end when we are strong enough to climb routes we haven't done before (ie. pretty much anything harder than 22)

cheers

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